Day 49

Numbers 16-17

Chapter 16

The body count continues to mount, and god becomes more sadistic and megalomaniacal. The clear message here is blind unquestioning obedience to the priest. I often wonder how believers can possibly justify or defend stories like this. Well the answer is in some of the comments to this blog post.

But that notwithstanding, some of the events in this chapter are pretty far-fetched. Verses 31-35 – some sort of earthquake maybe? And v 47 – some kind of fast-acting plague that could be quelled by incense? Abracadabra? Like something right out of Harry Potter….

Chapter 17

This is one of the stupidest stories I’ve ever heard. And again I have to give credit to Edward Falzon for his sardonic assessment of the situation:

“So to sum up for you, giving leprosy to Moses’ sister, combusting 250 rebels led by Moses’ cousin, and wiping out some 15,000 unarmed Hebrews with insta-plague was NOT enough to convince everyone that Moses, Aaron, and the Levites were the important ones, but growing flowers on a piece of wood will do it for sure.”